Matt Irwin

LitePanels is a smart call, but if you prefer / can only afford the Kino for this... I've run a 2ft 4-bank from a car battery with a 400w power inverter (to mount on a dolly for a long hallway shot). I ran the light for about an hour straight and didn't have any problems with voltage drop. A 4x4 would work perfectly well-- just switch it off when it's not needed and you should be able to get a couple hours use from one battery.

I would stay far away from Avenger heads, arms, and C-Stands. I've had one of thier pucks crack (yes, crack!) on me, the stand bases don't lock in place, and the legs easily bend out of shape. As mentioned above, Matthews and American Grip are both excellent. I'm a big fan of Modern Studio Equipment, but they're local LA and might be expensive to ship overseas.

For frames #10 and 11, I was reading the moon at 5-10 fc from the actor's mark. The pool was a 150 fresnel at half spot, which I think was reading at around 40 fc. For the scene with the football player under the "sodium" pool, the moon was around 15-20 fc and the sodium pool (a blonde w/ CTO and +GRN) was reading at around 80 fc. The camera stop was f2.8. (I don't have my log notes with me as I type this, so that's all rough from memory). In regards to the pedestal question, yes. The problem shadow noise on the HVX lives between 15-25 IRE, so taking down the pedestal will help to get rid of that. It works better if you give the chip more light and stop down. On frames 10 and 11, I was lit down to nothing, shooting at wide open, and the blacks seem muddier to my eye. The next frame was lit to around 20 fc and stopped down to a 2.8. To my eye, the blacks are more solid, and there's a bit more "snap." That footage was shot under the 3200K preset for a blue/green look. It's not supposed to be a normal/happy football game-- there's a negative undertone to the scene so I wanted a more unsettling look. I think the Muscos (these looked like mercury vapor-- we didn't get a scout of this location, so I can't say for certain) were recently installed because our HMI's were nearly a dead match! I think 1/8 +GRN would have brought them in, but I left the gel off to get a whiter blue from them since they were intended to be rim/kick/edge lights.

Thanks David!

Hi Satsuki, Thanks for the comments. I shot with the Black Press gamma setting to keep the noise to a minimum. HD Norm color marix throughout with the exception of the night breezeway scene where I switched to CineLike to get more green out of the cool whites. The HVX needs quite a bit of light to get a clean image, so for the night work (where "a bit of light" was at a premium) I took the pedestal down so the shadows were reading under 10... often under 5... on the waveform. I was mostly around a 2.8 for covered day exteriors, around 4/5.6 for open day exteriors, and wide open for night scenes. We shot with the stock lens due to budget and schedule. The 2.5 stop loss would have killed me on the night work. I used a Pola for all day exteriors and 4x ND filters as needed, but no other filtration. The night work was shot clean. Overcranking was only used for a few scenes where we get inside the main character's head or thought process. As for the clipped highlights, I agree with you somewhat. I may have gone a bit far in a few cases-- which frames were distracting to you? I wasn't concerned with trying to make the HVX look like film and, mainly in the interest of time, I chose to let certain parts of the frame clip so long as the actors were in.

(Continued from the first post...) There were a few night exteriors on the Sr. High campus... I ended up liking hard light the most for everything. The "moon" was HMI + 1/4 CTO. Looking back, I would have liked to have gone less blue, but I don't think I could have without more powerful units. A few frames from a football game sequence. We used the existing Musco stadium lights, augmented with our own HMI's and silk frames. We shot this in the Sr. High's theatre. They were equipped with two xenon follow spots which we gelled to tungsten balance and used for the key on the speaker and a as a backlight on the audience members. 12x Grid overhead, 2500 through silent frost as key, and a lot of negative fill. My favorite close ups. What a great time. Can't wait to do this again. Questions, comments, criticism... fire away!

I just finished a 4-week very-low-budget feature shot on the HVX200. The film takes place in and around a high school and revolves around a kid named Charlie (surprise!), a loner type who serves as a confidant to everyone. Our key locations were a Jr. High and a Sr. High (one for int, one for ext) as well as two houses. Production chose to work mostly with high school age actors, which was... an experience... and also played hell with our schedule. The film is 90% day exterior and covered day exterior, so we were HMI and grip all the way. Our lighting package consisted of a 2500 PAR as our "big gun", four 1200's, two 800 Jokers, two 400 Jokers, and a 200 Joker, as well as a unit called a BFL (a 28-bank dimmable fluorescent head designed by Jay Yowler), Kino Flos and other custom-made flo fixtures. We carried tungsten fresnels, redheads, and blondes, but they hid on the truck until our last week. --Camera-raw frame-lifts and some info below... I'd love some input / criticism! Our major location was a breezeway which the main character uses as his "office." A lot of dialogue takes place there throughout the film, so it became our safety set. The breezeway is basically a dark hallway with a wide outlet to an open courtyard on either side, not exactly ideal with summer sun and an HVX. The director and I both wanted a partial silhouette look for masters and a cross-lit look for coverage, which was usually 4:1, 3:1, or 2:1 depending on the scene and where the actors were on the set. I ended up using a 12x12 silver lemay hidden around one corner and the 2500 bounced into styrofoam hidded above the enterances. Coverage normally involved one or two 800's or 1200's through Silent Frost as the key. For a climactic night scene in the breezeway, we rigged 1-bank 4' shoplight fixtures with cool white tubes above the lockers. The background outside was lit with HMI's +1/4 CTO. A few different school interior scenes... Frosted Opal on the window/behind the bars with a 2500 and two 1200's behind it. 800 Joker through the door, BFL through Silent Frost as the key. The Principal's Office. The windows were 2' tall and at the top of the wall. We jammed a 2500/WFL in close, a 1200 through the window in the BG, and a 200 though Silent Frost as the soft kick. Night for day. I always got screwed into shooting day interior classrooms at night. Wouldn't be a big deal, except that all the windows had an N.9 tinit on them! So... 1/4 white on the windows with every HMI we had behind it! Was barely able to blow out the windows at wide open. (More coming in a minute...)

How big of a camera are you using, and are you looking for movement that is closer to a dolly or a steadicam? If it's a really lightweight camera like a PD-150, I've made/used a PVC pipe rig for doc work that is essentially a rectangular "cage" with handles. The camera sits in the center and the pipe provides handles in virtually any position you want. If you float the camera with your arms and practice a bit, the look can be somewhere in between handheld and steadicam. You can also build a skatewheel dolly from hardware store parts and speedrail (or other metal/plastic pipe) fairly cheaply. Just put the sticks on the dolly, and away you go. Under budget constraints, good craftsmanship and flat black paint can make anything look official!

I was just handed 3 beat-up nine-light mini brutes, all with less-than-intact wiring. (They look like three halfway finished "projects.") I'm looking for a wiring diagram or pictures that will help to guide me in reviving these lights to good working order. I have the Mole spec sheet to start, but Google has given me no love. Any ideas? Thanks,

I recently operated on a 3-HVX music video with a similar situation. A-camera was rotating two 8-gig cards while B- and C-Cameras were using two 4-gigs each. We had a dedicated "loader" using a single MacBook Pro and offloading using a P2 Store as a reader into FCP and saving onto two FW800 drives for redundant backup. I don't remember any of the cameras ever having to wait for a card. Andrew makes a good point about 16 gb cards-- there is a chance that the loader might have a bit of a "traffic jam," especially if you've only got one loading station. I should also mention that there is a known issue with P2 cards and Mac OSX that *sometimes* can result in corrupted audio, lost clips, etc. I got burned by this issue on a project using a PB G4 and the PC card slot. Haven't seen this happen with MacBookPros, but just FYI. I have since required that the loader manually check every clip before wiping a card. As for TC sync... Yes, you can sync multiple cameras to a master/A-Camera with firewire in Free Run TC only.

Rick, I just shot another short project on 8653 Super16 using older Zeiss MK1 primes, TK'd on a Spirit 2k. The results were better than I had hoped for. I haven't shot 7217 on a project but I have tested it, and I'd say that 53 is a bit less grainy and contrast is very close. It stands up surprisingly well to high contrast lighting (I was around 5:1 or 6:1). Very smooth stock. Hope that helps.

Thanks Hal. I emailed Aileen and got a response today. CMC stopped making gel a long time ago and they no longer have records of the old gel numbers. It looks like 1/4, so I'll call it 1/4.

I somehow wound up with a roll of CMC/Cinemills gel from my last shoot called "M-103 Straw." Nowhere on the label or the gel itself does it state the intensity (Full, half, quarter, etc). To my eye it looks like either 1/4 or 1/2, but I want to be sure before I use it. Anybody know?

I have an HVX project coming up that requires soft to completely out of focus backgrounds on dialogue coverage. 35mm adapters are no-go due to budget constraints, as well as the 2-stop light loss through the relay. The idea popped into my head to try diopters (like the schneider achromatics or similar), since they effectively shift inifinity closer to the lens and therefore should throw the background more out of focus than the stock lens normally would. Has anyone ever tried this? Am I crazy?

I just had an HD session at Matchframe and was very pleased with their work. Can't go wrong with Level 3 , FotoKem, Laser Pacific... there are many. Most "name-brand" telecine houses do HD, with the exception of a few I can think of.

I have yet to shoot a hair commercial myself, but I've heard that camera-sync strobes like ones that Clairmont makes are often used to light the talent. The idea is that the strobe fires at an ultra fast rate (read: much faster than 1/48 sec), so when the talent whips her hair around in slo-mo, every single strand of hair is tac-sharp in every frame. Hope that starts you in the right direction toward the "panteen look." Best,

Thanks for the replies. I'll post results if we end up going this route. How close can the glass get to the lens? Could it theoretically be mounted on the support rods?

I'm shooting a horror short soon, and the director is interested in testing the glowing eyelight effect that Jordan Cronenweth used on Sean Young in Blade Runner. I read the old AC article and know the basic setup--- Shoot through a large piece of optical flat at 45 deg. to film plane, aim a small fresnel (150 scrimmed/dimmed??) at the flat 90 deg. perpendicular to film plane. Light reflects off of the flat, bounces off the back of the eye and backlights the pupil. That all makes sense in theory, but I've just never done it. Are there any practical issues I should know about with regards to the setup? How much can the talent pan their head before the effect disappears? I'd like to get it as right as possible for the test because we won't have enough film for trial and error. Shooting s16 7218 rated @ 400 & superspeeds. Anyone here done this before?

Hey David, Just saw The Astronaut Farmer tonight and wanted to say-- fantastic work. Congratulations!

You could test a higher shutter speed / angle- like 1/250 instead of 1/48- and then do the ramp in post. This would help to minimize the stutter that often occurs with artificial slo-mo. I've done this before in SD with good results, but not with an F900. Converting 60i to 60p might be smoother, but as Michael said, you would lose resolution.

Are you using the XLR as ballast feeder? If so I'm really curious as to how you did it-- I've been toying with some of my own designs for homemade flos and zip cord is really clumsy. Sorry if this is too off-topic, just very curious.

The $90 version probably comes with a magnetic ballast.

Shouldn't be very noticeable unless you have a lot of quick or jumpy movement in frame with the TV. As long as you match exposure to the non syncro scan footage (use zebras / marker), it should be invisible.

Sounds like you just need to ride the Syncro Scan function. Go into the Scene File menu and change the syncro scan setting until the black bars disappear. Film Cam or Video Cam mode- doesn't matter.

Breaker finders can be had for less than $40. My finder is made by Ideal, works very well, and cost $35. As long as the device is just a finder and not a multi-function tool, it should be very affordable.